CONSULTING: It’s All About Expectations!

By Tushar Khosla

Consultants increasingly tend to describe assignment outcomes - bad or good - in terms

of Client expectations. Whether it is “failing to manage expectations” or “managing to
exceed expectations”, it’s all about expectations! Since Client expectations have emerged
as a core concern, it seems pertinent to view the consulting business from this
perspective. This note attempts to provide a framework for the business of consulting
from the angle of Client’s expectations.

1.1. Consulting from the Expectations Perspective

From the Client expectations perspective, the consulting business can be viewed in the
form of a three phase model that can be called the 3-D model; Discovery phase wherein
Clients expectations are unearthed, Definition phase wherein shape, form and boundaries
are given to these expectations, and Delivery Phase wherein activities are undertaken to
meet the defined expectations. These phases are predominantly sequential, although small
midcourse alterations may be permitted, if both Client and consultant agree. While this 3-
D sequence would usually be a standalone cycle (Figure 1.1), it may sometime take a
spiral shape (Figure 1.2), given the Consultants ability to discover new expectations at
the time of meeting delivering those that were originally agreed upon.

D2: DEFINE

CLIENT
EXPECTATIONS

D1: DISCOVER D3: DELIVER

Figure 1.1: 3-D Expectations Model for Consulting Business

Each of the above phases will now be examined in some detail and strategies and
techniques will be proposed that could help consultants handle these phases better.

 Tushar Khosla, 2004 1

 D2
D1
Cycle-2
D3
Figure 1.2: The
Spiral Route of
D2
D3 Cycle-1
D1
Expectations

1.2. Phase 1: Discovering the Clients’ Expectations

Consulting opportunities arise due to the Clients’ desire to undertake change within its
organization and its realization that it requires external help to do this. There are several
reasons that could make management realize the need for change, including extrinsic
reasons such as alterations in competition, market, regulations and technology, and
intrinsic reasons such as changing stakeholder and management expectations, and
redefined vision and role of the company. However, the desire for change needs to be
supported by the motivation to undertake the change. Sometimes this motivation may
not be very high, either due to insufficient dissatisfaction with the present state, or due to
the lack of a clear vision of the redefined changed state. Other barriers such as a lack of
perceived alternatives, limited financial resources, past experiences of failed change
initiatives or the absence of a sponsor for the change may also delay action.

Assessing the strength of business logic for change and motivation levels of Client are
parameters while prospecting Clients for consulting opportunities. Figure 1.3 classifies
the Clients’ state of readiness into four quadrants, and also indicates the action to be
taken by Consultants in each case.

 Tushar Khosla, 2004 2

 H
i Candidate for
B Bring D
A D2-Hot Pursuit
Perspective
Motivation
0A C
to undertake Overcome
change Why Motivational
bother? Barriers
L
o
L H
A
o Need for Change i
A A
Figure 1.3: Prospecting Clients on their readiness for change

The first step is to undertake pre-proposal investigations to establish the Client’s position
with respect to the four Quadrants. This investigation needs to be undertaken objectively,
and its findings confirmed through different sources, including cues received during
initial interactions with the Client. The fact that the Client has invited tenders does not
mean that the case is in Quadrant D; it may be in Quadrant B instead. The Client’s
assignment coordinator could often project Quadrant D instead of Quadrant B, leaving
the real status to be discovered once Consultants recognize missing or conflicting signals
from elsewhere in the company.

Clearly, soliciting business from Clients in Quadrant A is not a priority while Clients in
Quadrant D are worthy of hot pursuit by the Consultants. Clients in Quadrants B and C
need careful consideration. Regarding Clients in Quadrant C, the need for change is well
established in their business logic; Consultants need to identify the barriers to action, and
direct their efforts accordingly. Proactive efforts by the Consultants in such cases are
likely to increase the Clients’ motivational level and move them into Quadrant D. For
example, several companies appreciate the need to use information technology to
improve company operations but do not know how to go about it. Such companies need
technical support to encourage them to take decision towards implementing IT solutions.
This explains the readiness of consulting firms’ to undertake technological planning
studies at insignificant considerations. Similarly Companies that involve consultants in
strategic planning look for some risk sharing by the consultants in ensuring successful
implementation. Further, Consulting firms show creativity in structuring fees to
overcome the Clients’ financial barriers.

In the case of Clients in Quadrant B, the Consultants preliminary investigations would

reveal that the Client’s motivation is out of proportion to the actual need for change.
Should one go ahead and milk the opportunity? Such cases pose an ethical challenge.
Before we can decide on an appropriate approach to such situations, let us see why and
when they occur.

Often it is a case of the Clients developing a liking for a well-packaged solution (with a
plethora of impressive-sounding acronyms!) irrespective of the intensity of their problem

 Tushar Khosla, 2004 3

or the relevance of the solution to their context. The Client’s thought process tends to be,
“Our competitors have done it, my earlier company has done it, and they are performing
so well (perceiving questionable cause-effect relationship); besides budget sanction can
also be arranged”. This motivates the Client even if other more pressing problems await
solutions.

Alternatively, it may be that Consultants during the execution and delivery of an existing
assignment have either invented or discovered a feeble expectation and blown its
requirement out of proportion, thereby leveraging their credibility and proximity to the
Client to book the next assignment. Other reasons could be the genuine enthusiasm of a
new incumbent to contribute towards the organization.

Frequently, the proposed solution is too sophisticated and evolved for the organization in
question. Even if the systems are put in place, the expected benefits may not accrue, as
business does not demand it or existing work practices do not support it. We see several
cases of sophisticated management information systems that are in place but which are
not in use since the effort required to maintain the plethora of updated data on the system
is not justified in terms of business advantage. A scaled down version of the solution
would have been much more appropriate to the Clients’ needs. In these cases, the
Consultant has moved out with the payments and the satisfaction of having provided a
state-of-art system, but nothing has changed at the Client’s end. Instead the foolhardiness
of the champion of the initiative has becomes an integral part of company folklore.
Worst, this goes into organizational learning, scuttling several other deserving initiatives
and also closing doors for the consultants for a long time.

When encountering such situation (Quadrant B), the Consultant needs to engage the
Client in a dialogue on the problem that needs to be solved (purposely avoiding
discussion on the solution itself), and establish the cost benefit balance of solving this
problem. This discussion shall establish the urgency and priority of addressing this issue
among other issues. As way forward, it may be possible to suggest the Client to take it
later issues under different context (reconfigured scope) or undertake modular approach
(step by step). There are too many risks in undertaking the assignment in its present form,
because the Client may gain perspective in between, the motivated sponsor may get
transferred, the solution may not deliver and the professional integrity of Consultant may
be called to question.

Although taking inputs from Consultants is now an established norm and does not raise
any ego or ethical issues, some organizations may still resist this. The reasons could be a
perceived loss of image (that of expert and pioneer), belief that their operations are too
unique for outsiders to add value to, security aspects or a bitter past experience with
Consultants. The Consultants will need to use their discretion to decide whether to pursue
the case or to revisit in a more favorable environment.

Having convinced oneself about the discovered expectations, it is time for the Consultant
to move to Phase 2, that is towards defining the assignment specifics.

 Tushar Khosla, 2004 4

1.3. Phase 2: Defining the Clients’ expectations

This phase sets the contours of the assignment and correlates the discovered expectations
of the Client to specific requirements. These requirements would entail specific inputs
from the Consultants and Clients, to be made under a suitable institutional framework and
guided by assignment specifics. Figure 1.4 defines the three components of Phase 2 i.e.
defining expectations.

Institutional Framework
Role of Consultant
For Delivery

D2
DEFINITION PHASE

Assignment Specifics
Technical, Financial & Contractual

Figure 1.4: Three components of Defining Expectations

Defining Role of the Consultant: Can there be any confusion about this? The answer is
yes, especially when the Client expects the Consultant to play the specialist (Doctor/
Adjudicator) role while the Consultant believes his role to be that of a facilitator (coach
and guide). If there is a difference in perspective on the role of the Consultant, the Client
may look towards the Consultant for specific pronouncements and prescriptive directions
(adjudicating internal conflicts, and equitable distribution of favors), while the Consultant
re-emphasizes the need for a consultative process of problem solving and provides set of
options leaving the choice to the Client. Its clear that, even if playing a facilitators role,
Consultants should carry out their own analysis, and present alternatives with their merits
and limitations.

It is important for Consultants to be clear in their own minds regarding their predominant
role, whether that of technical specialists or process facilitators, and to get a clear
agreement from the Client on this issue. The choice of the role should be defined as per
the context and the problem definition and not by the Consultants preferred style or as per
the Clients’ convenience. Sometimes, the role definition may need to be re-emphasized
by clearly stating specific inputs that are not to be expected from the Consultant.
Defining the Consultants role up-front clearly dictates the terms of the agreement and the
deliverables, and acts as reference to address any gaps in interpreting the specific
responsibilities of the Client and Consultants during the execution of the assignment.

 Tushar Khosla, 2004 5

Defining Institutional Framework for Execution Its equally important for the
Consultant, that the Client establishes an appropriate institutional framework for
executing the Consulting assignment. This involves deciding who should lead the effort
from the Client side and what the monitoring and coordination mechanism should be.
Further, it is important to ensure that all affected and influencing parties (other suppliers,
subcontractors) are represented in the proposed framework with well-established
responsibilities and a suitable coordination mechanism.

In case the outcome expected out of assignment is perceived as an unpleasant one

(downsizing, privatization, closure), or is likely to affect the whole or large part of the
organization, the initiative should be either led by a High Level Committee or by the
Head of the organization. Second rung leaders, no matter how competent, tend to have
limitations, originating out of a lack of legitimate authority to comment upon or decide
for the whole organization.

Defining Assignment Specifics: Assignment specifics can be categorized in terms of

technical, financial and contractual aspects. This note considers only the technical aspects
since the other two are important enough to have well supported company policies,
guidelines and a fair amount of standardization. Technical aspects involve the following:
i. Defining Terms of Reference
ii. Defining Deliverables
iii. Defining Schedule

Defining Terms of Reference To start with, Consultants need to break the myth of
considering “Terms of Reference (ToR)” as the expected output of the assignment.
The stated objective of the ToR is to capture Client’s expectations from the assignment
and it is commonly considered to be the scope and criteria against which the
completeness of the consulting assignment will be judged. While it is true that ToRs are
prepared with some idea about the problem at hand and some information about the type
of outside expertise available to help solve the problem, they are at most the Clients
statement of intention, developed initially to get budget approved for the assignment and
to invite tenders. This gets revealed in the manner in which ToRs are written and the ever
increasing number of items into it. Some ToRs actually looks like components of
methodology, and if defined in such a manner severely constrains Consultants in making
adjustments to methodology if investigations so demand.

It is in the Consultants interest to define the ToR to correctly reflect the Clients
expectations. The best way to do this is to meet the organization representative at the
highest relevant level and discuss the context without reference to ToR. Ask for two or
three specific issues that are major problem areas and which the Client wants Consultants
to work upon. Define the main areas of concern and compare with the ToR (if it has been
handed over to you) to ensure that it encompasses those issues. If it does not, bring it to
the Clients’ notice. This way the Client will be able to set well defined priorities. Unless
this is done, the Consultants’ tendency is to either spread effort equally across all
components of ToR or to set priorities that are more influenced by their own interests and
abilities.

 Tushar Khosla, 2004 6

In certain cases the way ToRs are written leaves much open to interpretation, especially
in terms of Specificity of Recommendations. What is the level at which the
recommendations are to be made: Organization, division, group, project, individual? For
a Consulting assignment related to corporate strategy, where should the recommendations
stop: by identifying the need for diversification, possible areas of diversification, strategy
for diversification, possible JV partners, equity break-ups; the list can go on and on. For
an IT strategy, it may mean examining need for ERP, identifying modules,
functionalities, appropriate ERP, suitable Vendor, cost or a subset of these.

To best address this issue, convert the ToR components into a set of questions and get the
Clients’ agreement on the scope and exhaustiveness of the list. Spell out the necessary
details to ensure that no doubts persist about the expected specificity of
recommendations. The Client may add more questions or delete a few as a matter of
detail not required as a part of the assignment, but once agreed upon, this list becomes a
key reference list for the rest of the assignment. This becomes the common evaluation
criteria to judge the output of the assignment. If not done at pre-proposal stage, perform
this exercise within the first month of the assignment and include the outcome in the
inception report.

Among the several unstated expectations, which need clarification, is the Consultants
responsibility towards skill transfer (capacity building) and system support. It is in the
interest of the Consultants that the Client system develops sufficient in-house capacity
and capabilities to carry on, once the Consultants withdraw. However, this effort has its
costs and has to be planned and negotiated upfront. If the ToR does not cover this issue, it
is important to get this stated explicitly.

Defining Deliverables Sometimes a large number of deliverables reflect either the

Client’s need for control at every step or a belief that the high cost of Consulting can only
be justified by a large number of deliverables. The financial reason could be the Clients’
desire to spread the payments across several milestones. It is important to discuss the
technical objective of each deliverable with the Client. The purpose of each deliverable is
to provide an opportunity for the Client organization to take cognizance of the progress of
the assignment and intermediate outcomes and this involves committing resources and
management time on the behalf of the Client. Sometimes however, the number of
deliverables are so large and their submission so frequent that it may not be possible for
the Client to devote adequate attention and time compromising the objectives of the
intermediate deliverables. Its seen that the top management’s time is always a big
constraint and seeking it too often for intermediate deliverables becomes a constraint for
the assignment coordinator. However, each deliverable adds to the documentation and
accounting effort on both sides. It is best to critically analyze the purpose of each
deliverable, its scope and its form (report or presentation) with the Client at the initial
stage and remove any that are unnecessary. An option could be provided to allow the
Client to add deliverables during course of assignment if both parties feel the
requirement. Further, not every deliverable need necessarily involve associated financial
commitment.

 Tushar Khosla, 2004 7

Defining Schedule It is a rare Client whose estimate of the time required for the
assignment is not at least 40% less than the Consultants’ estimate. One reason could be
the difference in understanding the ToR and the specificity of the recommendations. This
problem should be resolved by this stage. If the difference in estimates still persists, it
may be reflection of financial implication of project duration, which works differently for
Client and Consultant. The fact that financial bids are based on man-month efforts (in
turn related to assignment duration) and the rates, it is in the interest of the Client to
underestimate man-months and for Consultants to overestimate. This becomes clear, once
the assignment has begun and the Consultant realizes that the Client is willing to award
extensions and switch deadlines but with no price escalation. Despite several claims and
promising formulas, I still believe that a lot of intuition and experience is involved time
estimation. Whenever the time estimates are significantly different, one may consider
negotiating price and effort separately from the assignment duration. There are limits to
how much a schedule can be squeezed, no matter how many resources are put on the job.
The more the dependencies outside the Consultants realm of control, the more is the
buffer required. Sometimes, including intermediate periods of non-activity for the
Consultants while Client develop it response may help to contain cost within the defined
overall duration. These periods of inactivity need not be predefined in the schedule but
total period may be indicated.

1.4. Phase 3: Delivering on Clients’ Expectations

Undertaking
Investigation Developing
Recommendation

Relationship Management

Project Management

Initiation Delivery Phase Closure

Figure 1.5: Components of Delivery Phase

The delivery phase starts with the signing of the contract and ends with the receipt of
final payment from the Client. Figure 1.5 depicts the different components of the delivery
phase. Project management and relationship management components run throughout the
delivery phase. Consulting firms mostly view assignments as projects and to that extent
have developed fairly standard and sophisticated tools to track resources, costs and
deliverables. Hence project management component of delivery phase is not discussed
here. However, there are peculiarities in other components that need emphasis and these
are briefly discussed below.

 Tushar Khosla, 2004 8

Relationship Management: The Client-Consultant relationship is a lateral relationship
based on equality and partnership with each one playing its pre-defined role. It needs
special attention to ensure that the relationship does not degenerate into a boss-
subordinate relationship. Several Clients are accustomed to a command and control setup
and are uncomfortable in this kind of relationship, hence the onus of managing this
relationship throughout the assignment is on the Consultant. Consultants have to
demonstrate sincerity, trust and professional competence in early interactions with
Clients in order to win their confidence and to be treated as partners in the relationship as
differentiated from the other contractors, suppliers, outsourcing parties or external
auditors. Once the relationship is established, Consultant must possess sufficient
discipline and self control to avoid leveraging the Clients’ dependence to arrogate the
power of the Client. Consultants need to have authority with Clients and not over or
under them. My crude test of knowing that right relationship is in place is when either of
us (Client or Consultant) is equally comfortable in shifting appointments, if we are not
100% prepared for the task defined for the meeting. A further sign of a healthy
relationship is that the Consultants do not obediently (almost automatically) accept every
demand made, nor do they expect Client to behave in that manner. While preparing
minutes of the meeting after every interaction, Consultants may give some thought to the
behavioral and emotive aspects of the interaction in order to pick up any early signals of
shift in balance.

Undertaking Investigations: The nature of assignment, the role of consultant and

methodology should dictate the extent of investigation to be undertaken. Nevertheless,
Consultants sometimes over invest in investigations with diminishing returns.

As Consultants, one can never know the organization as well as its internal staff.
Consultants need to focus on bringing the technical expertise to the problem domain,
developing hypotheses, and testing them. The Client and his internal staff would point
out any gaps in understanding specific aspects of the company. This is why it is important
to get the Client to formally accept (sign-off) the basis (e.g. currency and validity of data)
of the investigation and analysis before sharing the outcome of the analysis.

Given this, why do Consultants still over invest time in internal organization analysis?
The reasons for this are as interesting as they are revealing. Sometimes detailed data
collection is carried out to increase Client confidence that the solution is appropriate (or
suitably customized) for their organizational needs, and has taken care of the uniqueness
of their organization; many Clients seem to be overly sensitive about this. In many cases,
the volume of material collected can act as surrogate measure to demonstrate efforts
made, thicken reports and justify high fees. Meetings are not only carried out to get data,
impressions and views, but also to ensure that all important persons and stakeholders are
kept in good humor and given chance to contribute. These actions can be justified as a
response to the political realities of organizations but they should not be over-stretched as
they come at a cost. However, sometimes Consultants tend to stretch the data-gathering
phase to buy time to hunt for an elusive solution. There are limits to how far analysis can
take Consultants (in most cases no further than it takes the Client) and it is creativity and
experience that fills the chasm between analysis and recommendations. But whenever
analysis paralysis syndrome occurs, Consultant should realize the intellectual road block
 Tushar Khosla, 2004 9
one is facing, take help from resource consultants (other experts in your firm) and
determine whether the problem is insolvable by design or whether the Consulting team
lacks the adequate skills, experience, and creativity to solve the problem. The follow-up
action becomes evident (either mutually close the project, redefine scope or redefine
team) but needs to be carried out with complete authenticity and at the earliest.

Developing Recommendations: There are often several possible solutions to address the
issue at hand and even if Clients agree with the Consultant regarding the nature and
extent of problem, they may not accept the proposed solution.

Developing recommendations require high contextual sensitivity on the part of

Consultants, especially in three areas:
i. Clients appetite for risk
ii. Comfortableness with technology
iii. Prevalent organizational practices

Clients’ appetite for risk: In these days of reforms, we recently suggested a

restructuring option to a government organization, that would have yielded significant
gains to all stakeholders. The plan was well backed by rational and logical arguments
undertaken for an extended period at all levels within the organization. The proposal was
presented to the seniormost government officials, and they seemed to be convinced about
its merit, until one of them asked, “Has anyone implemented this, anywhere?” and when
they did not get an unambiguous, “Yes”, their enthusiasm about the proposal fizzled out.
They were simply not ready to experiment; for them the risk associated with working
without any precedent was too much to take. Similar risk aversion is frequently observed
in private sector companies, especially companies doing well. The consequence of failure
being more severe (fatal), the private sector may risk change when continuing with the
present indicates impeding danger. However, they also seek assurance from precedents
even if they are from sectors outside their direct operating field (airlines learning from
hotel industry). This aversion to risk taking and charting new territory is why Best
Practices have become so popular. As a Consultant, it is important to gauge in early
interactions, the Clients’ appetite for risk and fresh thinking, otherwise a radical
solution at the end may not be acceptable to the Client. The Clients’ history of initiatives
and its reputation in the industry gives some indication of its risk taking capacity, and this
can be reconfirmed by making some bold proposals to the Client during conversations in
early stages.

Clients’ comfortableness with technology: Information technology may help a

company improve documentation and communication, enhance its internal process
efficiencies or provide a strategic competitive advantage. Different companies are at
different stages of technological adoption and the reasons may be sector or company
specific. Proposing solutions to over-enthusiastic management teams (with resources to
commit), which are beyond the company’s absorption capacity may be folly in the long
term. Consultants have to point out the prerequisites for successful technological
absorption, including the resource and management commitments and the associated
risks, and be suitably convinced about the business justification of proposed solution
before recommending it to the Client.
 Tushar Khosla, 2004 10
Prevalent Organizational Practices: Each organization has its own set of practices; the
way the things are actually done in that organization. Practices are the outcome of
organizational history, evolutionary process, and owners’ preferences. They represent a
negotiated balance between conflicting interests and power lobbies in the organization.
Sometimes when the recommendations are pronounced as impractical, one of the reasons
is that they challenge prevalent practices. It could be that Client does not want to upset
the existing arrangements, as it might create problems larger than the one it aims to solve.
Consultants must keep in mind the interconnectivity and interdependencies of various
organizational elements. Do challenge the assumptions but with sense of empathy about
what exists. Embedded practices take time to change. Consultants may actually benefit by
considering the nature, reason and strength of prevalent practices (besides official
policies and procedures) while defining “variables” and “constraints” for generating
solutions. Recommendations need to account for changes in practices, through transition
plans that allow additional resources, flexibility in scheduling and relaxation in short term
performance measures. Several times operational managers are not against the
recommendations but the implementation mechanism and schedule.

Consultants need for contextual sensitivity require adopting process orientation during
assignment. Hence the emphasis in literature on paying equal attention to the process of
evolution of recommendations as to the content of recommendations. Several standard
techniques of engaging Client in joint problem solving are known, and may be suitably
chosen.

Recommendations evolved through deliberate and collaborative process with sufficient

contextual sensitivity have a high probability of being accepted. At the same time, once
in while every Consultant comes across a Client that accepts anything. As Consultants,
we need to be cautious getting caught in the trap of cutting corners for such Clients.

Sometimes, the Client coordinator is new to the subject area of consulting and has a very
low level of technical competence to judge the quality of the output created by
Consultants; in such cases even substandard work can pass through. Alternatively, the
Client may not have faith or interest in the consulting assignment but gone ahead under
some compulsions. In either case, Consultants must stick to internal professional quality
standards. There are other more demanding, competent and interested people in the
Client’s organization, who may judge the output later in the day. In one case, where we
were involved in providing a technological solution, the Client coordinator was not
comfortable with information technology and would approve most of the deliverables
without much difficulty. It was more difficult to get the deliverables passed by our in-
house quality expert, than by the Client. The temptation to take advantage of the Clients
ignorance and take shortcuts were severely restricted by the presence of this insufferable
barrier called the internal quality review. But the merit of the system was hammered
home when in the last phase of the assignment, the Project Coordinator from the Clients’
side was replaced by an expert in the field, especially brought in to guide the project to
closure and handle the implementation phase. This instance makes it clear that the quality
of consulting output should always be higher of the two: Consultants’ own professional
quality standards and the Clients’ expectations.
 Tushar Khosla, 2004 11
More importantly, the work done by Consultants is a permanent reflection of their
abilities and is their best marketing product. Nobody remembers the reasons and
situational constraints under which the work was carried out, but the solution will be
judged for its quality forever. This danger is omnipresent whenever Consultants take up
large tasks on shoestring budgets, under stiff competitive pressures. The fact that the
project is resource starved is not enough reason to justify gaps in quality. People who
judge consulting reports do not bother to note the cost, man-month efforts or situational
constraints under which the work was carried out but expect the best possible quality
output. Hence cutting corners, and compromising on quality is dangerous. Consultants
are as good as their worst deliverable.

1.5. Conclusion

This note defines the consulting business from the perspective of Clients’ expectations.
There are peculiar challenges faced by Consultants during the discovery, definition and
delivery phases of assignments. And any challenges inadequately handled in any phase
have a dysfunctional impact in later phases. Therefore, these unique challenges need to
be recognized and tackled. Some of these aspects tend to be overlooked, if consulting
assignments are managed using the project management paradigm alone. The note
identifies some of the many emergent challenges and possible strategies. Actual
challenges that emerge would depend on scope of consulting (organisational or
functional), type of Client (private sector or government bodies), operating context
(developing or developed economies) and prior experiences of Client and the consultants
involved. Whatever be the case, Consultants need to be equipped to handle both the
expected and the unexpected challenges on the assignment trip. After all, Business of
Consulting is all about expectations!

About the author:

Tushar Khosla is a management specialist working in the areas of strategic and organizational consulting.
He is with Tata Consultancy Services and presently based at New Delhi. He has consulted for Government
Institutions, Multilateral funding agencies, Public and Private sector companies, mainly in the infrastructure
sector. Presently, he is involved with the Modernising Government Program of Government of Kerala,
India. He can be reached at tushar.khosla@tcs.com or tusharkhoslam@hotmail.com.

The views expressed are personal. For discussions and feedback, please write to tushar.khosla@tcs.com,
or tusharkhoslam@hotmail.com.

 Tushar Khosla, 2004 12